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Sunday, 15 June 2008

Create your own social network 7 steps

Social networking is one of the key concepts that is driving Web 2.0 these days. With the opportunities social networks offer for collaboration and communication, this is certainly something we as educators should be thinking about being involved in.

In this tutorial I'd like to show you how to create your own social network on Ning, just by following 7 steps. I've published these as a downloadable PDF with screen shots, so that you can print them up and follow them / share them.

Perhaps though, more importantly it's worth thinking about some of the issues, and pros and cons surrounding the use of social networks.

Some advantages of creating your own network.

Control over the contentYou can make sure nobody posts anything inappropriate or irrelevant.

Control of who joins and the ability to block or ban peopleYou can protect your members, ban anyone who doesn't behave or just limit membership to people you want to invite.

Increased reachYou can increase the reach of your F2F activities and get more people involved in the collaborative / collective development of your project.

Good for your personal / career developmentYou can learn a lot through being an administrator and develop some useful skills and knowledge.

Things to consider before you launch your network

Closed (just people you invite) or Open (anyone who wants to join)I would advise starting off with just people you invite first to see how things take off. Deciding to make the network open could take a lot of consideration and demand much more 'policing' moderation from you.

Do you have the time to manage the network?This is always a key question for teachers. Keeping the network active and up to date is going to take time. If you don't have the time / resources to put into it, best not to start.

Do you have or can you find content to input to the network?Content is still the main motivation for teachers / students to get involved, even if it's just as stimulation for communication / collaborative work, you need to have something to offer and your members are going to need to 'get something' from visiting your network, or they won't be coming back.

How / Will you be able to nurture collaboration between the members?Bit like the point above. Just providing a network isn't going to create collaboration. Ning is just a platform, you have to provide reasons, tasks, activities for members to collaborate on, or it just won't happen.

What functionality (groups, forums, video and photo sharing) do you want to make available?Providing all of these on Ning is easy, but don't provide anything you can't use. If you provide the ability to share photos / videos, make sure you have something to share and reasons for sharing those things. You'll also need to think about who can share add and create. Are you going to keep complete control or share it with your members?

Will you want to include advertising or ask it to be removed?If you are using Ning for educational purposes you can contact them and ask for advertising to be removed. You can also pay for a Ning platform and generate some money from the advertising yourself. I wouldn't recommend this as the amount may well not justify what you have to put up with from the advertisers. It's also better to get the advertising removed before you invite people to join, as some of the links can be inappropriate.

What information will you want members to add when joining?You can decide what information members need to submit when they join and decide who sees the information. You find out a lot about them this way, but people can be put off by having to give away their information, so it could be best just to let them decide.

How long will you want to keep the network live? (limited period or indefinitely)If you only intend to use the network for a specific time limited project it might be good to make this clear to your members, so they keep records of anything they develop within the network. Then when the project ends you can delete it with a clear conscience and keep the web tidy.

Looking at other networksBefore you start your own social network it's a good idea to have a look round at what others are doing. You might get some good ideas, see some potential pitfalls you want to avoid, or even decide someone already has your area covered and just decide to join them instead of recreating the wheel. Here a four networks for teachers that are well worth checking out.

Evaluation criteriaDeciding whether you want to join or recommend a network can be a tricky process, but as I've been looking around for ones I want to be part of I've built up a list of criteria that I find quite useful to have in the back of my mind.

What features / functionality does the network offer? (Groups forums etc.)If there's no interaction, is it worth being a part of this network?

Are the groups / forums active with a number of members exchanging information?Just because it has them doesn't mean they are being used. Have a look and make sure there is something there to learn and somebody there to learn with.

Are these features being used? (If the network offers the use of photo or video sharing is this being used?)This is a good place to look to see what members are really sharing. Is there original content or is it all grabbed from YouTube / Flickr?

Can you find out when the network was last active?Some networks are still online, but have died. Either the members or creator has lost interest. No point joining an inactive network.

How many members does it have?Open networks that only have a small number of members, may be less worthwhile. Most networks need a critical mass to keep them moving, unless the members are very committed.

Are any of the members’ photographs inappropriate?Many people join networks to pull traffic to their / unsuitable sites. A quick look at their avatar image could well give you a clue to which these are.

Check out some of the member profiles. Does the profile disclose the member’s email address or other personal info that you wouldn't want to share?Make sure that the network isn't forcing you to disclose more information than you would feel happy with.

Are there any ‘Google Ads’ on the site? Are these suitable or potentially offensive?Especially when recommending networks to others, it's good to check this first.

Is there any interesting content on the site?Again, I still believe that content is king. Content + collaboration = learning! No content, don't join.

Who is behind the network?Always wise to know who you are dealing with and sharing your information / knowledge with. Is it a group of like minded individuals, or a faceless company with dubious motivations?

13 comments:

Nik, Thanks so much for citing Mexico English Teachers' Alliance (META means target or goal in Spanish, so the name says a lot) and joing the site. I have been following your Web writings for a while now; lots of really good stuff your putting out "there."

Along with the META social/professional network, I also have my own blog, The 21st Century Teacher :: Faces of Web 2.0, which showcases many cutting-edge educators and their work .. along with Web 2.0 tools,tips and stories. Like you, I am certainly a Webhead!

With so many social networks out there now, it's difficult finding one related to your subject of interest or marketing niche. I find Google to be inefficient as it returns too many irrelevant results. The best resource I have come across to find niche social networks is the search engine http://findasocialnetwork.com

I checked out the findasocialnetwork site .. and discovered that it is not a search engine at all. It is a directory service that only includes sites that have been physically added (and approved) to a database by "submit site." Many important social networks are not even returned in the results .. and of course new and interesting networks won't be their either. But, I agree that Google doesn't really return results that always match the user's needs. That is why having a Personal Learning Network is so important, like twitter, diigo, delicious, Nings, etc. because the members (that share common interests) serve as the "filter" to bring the most relevant resources to the top. Directory services, I'm afraid,really do not achieve the best results either.

You're right about 'FindASocialNetwork. I'm always tempted to block anonymous postings anyway, and this one was quite obviously an attempt to promote the persons own service (not necessarily anything wrong with that). I decided in the end let it through as it might be useful for some people searching for networks on particular topics and because people might want to register their networks there (I'm assuming it's free).

As for promoting networks, that is tricky, but I hope it's like blogs, if you have good original content and you're offering a genuine service then people will put the word out. It takes time though and submitting your network, blog or site to services like this probably won't do any harm. The networks I'm working on at the moment are for specific groups, so I haven't had to cross that bridge yet.

I just did something similar for a newspaper and will post as soon as it is published. But not near as well done as this. I'll share this with our members who I'm constantly encouraging to use Ning with their students/schools/organizations. Thanks again,

It's always nice when people are willing to spread the word. I'm actually a member of EFL Classroom 2.0 and have found some pretty useful stuff there. Will be using as an example in some training I'll be doing soon, so maybe a few more new members coming up there.

I found social networking as a tool which had been primarily designed for social interaction and sharing. I m using these networks as part of my SEO tasks. You can gain lots of friends and build reputation over the net.

Gaining friends and building reputation over the net through Social networks is all well and good as long as you actually build a reputation for doing or delivering something of value to someone else. If you don't do this then your friends leave you and your reputation disappears. So in the end if you want to create a social network it should have something to offer your friends not just be a means to creating a reputation, or you'll just be developing a reputation for being a fraud and that isn't much use to anyone.

An interesting point.... not a problem for your blog, which certainly offers a lot.

I`ve been a member of META for a while (without ever having been anywhere Mexico), and found it useful. I`m looking into EFL classroom 2.0 after seeing it mentioned here and there.

But I`m actually looking for something a bit more streamlined, using tumblr as a blog platform (you can "follow" other tumblr loggers and their posts appear on your "dashboard", so it`s very easy to form a small TD group).

HI NickThanks a lot. I posted a query on BEsig Yahoo groups and was asked to see your blog. Thanks a lot. I needed some help on using social networking sites for BE courses, and have found many useful tips.Your site is really good, and covers many areas.I am now really excites about using your tips to make my sessions more interesting.Lalitha Murthy( from Bangalore, India)